


The Sweetest Fruit

by Dominura



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Character Death, Gore, Kink shame me daddy, M/M, Necrophilia, Tragedy, WARNING THIS IS GROSS, nothing is canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-06 15:37:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8758798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dominura/pseuds/Dominura
Summary: Eren and Levi find themselves running away from a titan ambush beyond the walls. They manage to make it to safety, but nothing is quite right when they make it home





	

After we took back the walls, Armin, the newly appointed survey corps commander, made the decision for us to venture outside of our protective bubble to see what else lies out there. I’ve been out there enough times to know it was a bad idea, but the commander’s youth and foolish curiosity blinded him to the potential dangers. 

He wants to see the ocean, whatever that is, it’s probably not worth the 300 lives of our best men. But, despite the risks, being failure or death, but most frequently both, his thirst for the ocean is enough to raise everyone’s spirits. Even when we go past the gate, everyone won’t stop grinning, with Eren grinning the widest out of all of them. As much as I like seeing him smile, all this happiness is making me sick. 

On the second night past the walls, the fog and clouds cover us like a shroud, making it impossible to see arm's length past your face. It's deathly cold like a meat locker and we’re soaked on our sleeping bags. Connie and Sasha have been trying to start a fire for hours now, but unfortunately, all the wood is drenched and after attempting to burn whatever they can find they give up. Without them talking and bickering it’s dead still. With every motion I make my bones creak in the silence, there is no way I’m getting any sleep tonight. 

First, it’s the gallop of horses, then it's stomping as loud as an earthquake, and finally the screams that pierce the darkness like howling cursed souls. We’re under attack and we’re fighting blind. Like bats, we try to go off the sound of them, their heavy footsteps and wretched howls, but without being able to see our enemies and our allies our efforts are futile. 

It takes noticing that the blood isn’t burning off my clothing for me to realize that this time there is no hope. I can hear people dying all around me, I challenge the gigantic beasts to fight me head on, but they ignore me. Eren must have heard me because he appears behind me like an apparition in the fog. He’s panicking and yelling, nothing he says is making sense to me, it's then that I notice the gaping cut on the base of his neck. He’s not able to transform, and judging by the cleanness of the cut it was a blade. Even in practice, seasoned fighters have accidently cut the lines and bodies of their fellow soldiers, in the dark like this, I could imagine many have been killed due to friendly fire. But even still there is a chance this was done on purpose. Either way, this wound looks fucking nasty and I’m forced to make a difficult decision.

“Come with me,” I order, grabbing his arm, “I’m taking you to safety.” 

“What about the others?” he sobs and jerks away, “we can’t leave without them.” The wound on the back of his neck sizzles with his own titan-like blood as it tries and fails to heal. 

“We can’t do anything back there, we need to make it out of the fog,” I drag him against his will, I don’t want to leave any more than he does but I’ve been in charge of him since day one, and like hell I’m going to let him die if I can help him. I yell to anyone who can hear to fall back, I shoot my flare gun into the sky, but it gets eaten in the fog. The thought that we could die in such a pathetic situation after all we’ve been through pulls me to push harder through the mud. 

When we make it back to the horses, Eren is unable to stand, I have to heave his dead weight upon the horse and strap him with whatever I can find. I light the lanterns on all the wagons as some survivors appear in hopes that others can see them and ride to safety. I wait for more to show up before leaving. Staying here long would just put us more in danger. The fog is still heavy as we ride the horses in what I assume is the correct direction. The weather has worn the horses down, they’re slow and clumsy in the mud and slickened grass. 

The titans are after us and I can hear them picking off the people in the back, I roar at the horse to pick up the God damn pace. I grit my teeth, I’m going to get all these people to safety. When we break the fog, the light of day is creeping upon the horizon as if to taunt us. When it looks clear behind us we group up to dry our clothes and gather what resources we have, out of 300 soldiers only 46 made it out on just over thirty horses. We have next to no supplies and Eren’s condition is getting worse by the hour. 

Laying him in the shade, it's painful for him to move, much less talk. He’s lost a lot of blood, he’s porcelain pale, covered in sweat and icy to the touch. With no one around, I take off my blood-stained jacket and lay close to him to try to raise his body temperature. 

“You’ve always been so warm,” I say to him, “It’s weird when you’re cold like this.” 

For a moment he swallows dryly and coughs, blood spills down the side of his mouth, “You're supposed to be the cold one, you’re so warm.” I look to him just in time to see his eyes flutter open and shut once more. 

“Don’t push yourself,” I curl into him, “You’ll be fine once we get home.” 

“I love you,” he forces words past his dry throat, “you know that, right?” 

“I know, I love you too, Eren,” I feel him take a heavy breath before going still. 

It’s probably good for us to rest anyway, the other members of the survey corps have decided that we’re going to try to make the trip back to the wall all in one go, assuming the horses can take it. I put Eren back on my horse and the group heads back to the wall. When we’re safe and inside, it's hardly a time for celebration. Nobody talks or cries, there is no energy, both emotional and physical, left to do so. There are others who rode back with us with more severe injuries, missing limbs, and eyes among other things. The hospital in Shiganshina must be bursting at the seams, the place is crawling with disease and infection, it seems wiser for me to treat him as well as I can back at my home. I’m far more meticulous and cleaner than any doctor there anyway. Everyone’s too distressed to even notice our disappearance.

“You’ve really done it now,” I say when I finally get a look at his wound, its become infected on the ride back and doesn’t look like it’s healing. I’ve seen him grow back limbs and teeth in an instant, surely this little flesh wound shouldn’t be too hard. I’ll have to get Hanji to look at him when she’s released from the hospital. I clean and dress the wound to the best of my abilities and lay him back into bed. I lay flush to him, trying to keep him warm with my body heat. He’s as cold and as dewy as ever. 

The following morning, he refuses to wake and force feeding him is proving to be a difficult task. I allow him to sleep longer, while I go out for a long walk. When I get back, he seems to be doing better, he watches me when I come in but he doesn’t say anything, he’s still out of it and wants to go back to sleep.

On the third day, I try to get him to come out but he doesn’t want to or have the energy to go anywhere. I leave to report to the office alone. Since the mission obviously was a failure there is plenty to discuss. The body count is astronomical and so was the loss of supplies. Recovering from this one will be harder than expected. I hear them talk, but I’m too absent-minded to understand and soak in the information, so I nod when others do. I just want to get home to Eren, he’s the only person I can tolerate, I can’t stand to be around these old bastards. 

“At least you got dressed,” I help him sit in the arm chair, I straighten his collar and his hair, he looks good wearing regular clothes. I kiss him on the head, “I’ll make you chicken pie, then I’ll run you a bath and change your dressings.” 

He doesn’t seem to care one way or another, so I tell him about my day as I prepare supper and boil water for his bath. I could have had a better conversation with a brick wall. With the stress of work and life in general, it soon becomes maddening to be ignored like this. He must be mad at me about something, it’s not unlike him to pull something like this. We’ve had more than our fair share of quarrels and arguments since we’ve been a couple, but he’s never ignored me like this. He knows how much it irritates me, he must still be still trying to process what is happening. I turn to him and sigh. 

“A lot of people died, but at least a half of a dozen road in through the gates today,” I take off the bandages, the infection seems to be getting worse and the wound shows no signs of healing, “I get that you're mad at me, I’m mad at me too. I wish that fog hadn’t come and that we could have seen that ocean-thing. I made a decision to leave, as much as I regret it, it did save our lives.” 

“I’m worried that someone will try to attack you if they know you’re injured like this,” I help him to the bath, and lower him into the warm salted water, “I told them that you split away from me when the titans showed up that night, they probably think you’re dead. When you’re doing better I’ll make a deal with someone from the garrison to let you in.” 

“Ok,” the words creep past Erens cracked lips. My eyes widen before softening, it’s the only thing he’s said since we rest under that tree. I wash his back gently with the sponge removing days’ worth of dirt. I kiss his shoulder, “I’m glad you’re back.” 

“Me too,” he say’s shyly with his jaw slightly askew,“I’m sorry about all of this.” 

“Don’t be,” I try to comfort him, but him just talking to me proves to ease all my stress as well, “I’ve been out of line and I’m sorry for that.” 

He slides deeper in the bath, it must feel nice, “You should get in with me, I miss you.” 

My eyes narrow, “I’ll think about it once you’re clean,” I play with the suds on his shoulder, “have you even looked at the colour of this water?” I say and he laughs quietly and mutters something along the line of, “I suppose so”. 

I leave him be for a while well I go put on my nightwear. It's been days since I’ve been off the field but I can’t seem to wash the smell of death and battle of my skin. It has soaked into my every pore, and changing clothes won’t get rid of it. It insists on lingering on me like a ghost, but I suppose that’s only fair after what I’ve done.

I drain the water and bring Eren back to the bedroom, he doesn’t want to get dressed. He watches me fold my clothes, his hooded eyes watch me provocatively. I get into bed with him, I’m tired and I want to head to bed but he keeps whispering things to me and pressing up against me. His voice is still scratchy and I can barely understand what he’s saying. But I can tell it's of a sexual nature when he purrs slowly like an untamed beast and utters, I want you in me, his hand crawls up under my shirt. I grumble and groan, had I not have felt so drained I would have quickly entertained his offer. But it's odd to see him like this, crawling all over me with such little self-control, usually, he shies away from such things. 

It's erotic. I kiss him back and he pulls me on top of him, putting his legs on either side of me and pulling me in with his ankles. He’s so leggy and if I wasn’t so turned on, I would be jealous. I touch him, knowing nothing is off-limits. After all that’s happened with my own squads and the survey corp. I completely drown myself in him.

I love him, so much, I could hardly imagine a world without him. 

He moans and mewls beneath me. I hold him so he can’t move, but he writhes and contorts with pleasure. Had I’d been younger, I would have gone all night with him, but I can feel my exhaustion and age catching up with me. He knows what I’m like and he doesn’t bother me about it. He lounges with a relaxed smile and looking pleasantly at me, that sickening sweet look in his eyes that usually lulls me to sleep keeps me awake for a while. In the low candlelight, his unblinking eyes look like they are solid black like a dogs. The big, dark, round, spheres suck up all the light in sight, suddenly he blinks and makes a face at me. He looks funny and for the first time in a long time I laugh under my breath. I kiss his silly looking face and we fall back to sleep. 

The following morning everyone at the headquarters is solemn, another soldier has returned on their own with another unconscious survivor in the night, the two of them perished in the hospital not long after the one fills out a report. She claimed that the two of them were the last ones to leave, they survived by running on foot into the woods. Anyone else who didn’t make it back yet, she believed without a doubt, is dead. 

It shreds the last strand of hope that everyone held onto, including me. Since no one else knows Eren is back, they read his name among the dead. I get the list of the dead and it's my duty to write formal notices and begin organizing everyone to go door to door to tell the families - if they have any. I hardly get an hour to myself in my office when military police thugs forcefully open my door with my secretary looking nervous behind them. What could these spoiled brutes possibly want?

“You’re under arrest for the murder of Eren Jaeger,” the one shouts. The other comes behind me, kicking the chair from under me and bounds my wrists in front of me like I’m a criminal. I don’t fight them back, everyone knows the military police are trigger happy morons on an ego trip. 

“I haven’t done anything,” I shout at them, and despite my not physically resisting one comes up behind me and throws me to the ground. The side of my face that made contact with the ground stings with an oncoming bruise, “I haven’t done anything!” I repeat again, only to earn another jostle and a laugh out of them. I’m one of the highest ranking officials in the survey corp. they have no right to treat me like a common criminal. That’s not who I am anymore. 

“Nice try, Ackerman,” his gloved hands slide around my body looking for weapons, probably more than he needs to, he finds a switchblade at my waist and rips if from my belt, “You can’t lie your way out of this one. “ They cuff me a drag me to my feet. 

“I didn’t kill anyone,” I assert myself once in the back of their wagon, “Especially Eren, I’d never hurt him,” the realization that Eren could be gone sets in, my voice cracks, “You could ask anyone.” 

“That was pretty apparent,” the driver says and they all laugh like rabid hyenas. 

“Let’s take him back to his place,” one suggests with a slight grin before shutting the small opening to the back. I can hear them talking faintly, “maybe his reaction will help prove his guilt. Has anyone ever seen this guy cry? He’s lost how many people? This has got to be, what, his fourth or fifth squad he’s gotten killed? He probably didn’t want to loose this one out there so he took care of him himself, almost sad isn’t it?”

I close my eyes and breath to regain what little I have of my composure. It's not possible for Eren to be gone, he was fine last night and this morning. Maybe not in the best health, but good enough to fight off an intruder at least. 

The door to my flat looks as though it's been kicked in and even meters from my door I can smell it. The familiar smell of death. I sniff and try to stagger my breaths as they shove me through the door. 

Across the room, laying in my bed, I see a mass covered in a stained canvas tarp. I step towards it and someone pulls me back, “Easy there.” He leads me towards it slowly, there are people in the bathroom rifling through my laundry and eyeing the tub. I want to rip mine and Eren’s things out of their filthy claws, but it’s clear I’m in no position to do so now. 

The officer pulls the tarp back allowing me to see, I hadn’t known what to expect. 

“See,” another officer chuckles, “He didn’t even flinch.” The voices and sounds in the room go quiet as my eyes look at the corpse before me. The body is on its stomach, swollen like a grape, the body fluids gather near the bottom of the corpse, forming a layered cake of colour. Purple, red, yellow, and white. The veins make the skin look marbled, and with the bruises that must have occurred before and after death. The putrid bandage on the back of its neck is erupting with maggots down to the bone. The pathetic insects dribble out of the wound and down the neck and back trying to find more of their host to bury in. Erens cut wasn’t nearly that deep and given the last seven hours since I saw him, there is no way his body could have decomposed so rapidly in half a work day. 

I take a closer step closer as they turn the mass over with a thud and a twang on the mattress. The flies scatter and buzz like smoke. The face is horribly disfigured, like bruised fruit from being face down for so long. I pull the back of my hand to my mouth to lessen the smell soaking into my skin. 

“That’s not him,” I clear my throat, I want to look away but I can’t. Its gaping mouth lays open as if screaming out silently in pain, “I saw him, this morning, he was alive, he was right here. Alive!” I’m hardly aware of how loud I’m yelling, “I kissed him goodbye this morning, he was fine, this thing, IT’S NOT HIM.”

They investigators exchange looks, they don’t care what I have to say, their minds are made. 

“Someone,” one of them says with air quotes, “performed sexual acts on the body, likely over the course of a few days in this room,” they put the tarp back on, “you understand the walls are quite thin in the building.” 

My heart races like an uncaged animal in my chest, “We’ve been together for years,” I struggle to find the right words as the walls begin closing in on me, “I loved him, he would be the last person I’d want to see dead.” I can’t come up with a possible cause for this, I’m not thinking straight, none of this makes sense. 

The investigator bites her lips, she must be able to tell that I have no idea what is going on. The expression on her face is one of pity but undoubtedly disgust, “if Eren was alive, where is he now?” 

“I don’t know,” I scan the room desperately, the whole place is a mess from them scattering out belongings, there could have been a break in and with the way it is now there is no way to tell what happened. I spin around to look at the scene, the iron cuffs cut into my wrists. 

“Then why was he here in the first place, you personally reported him missing in formal reports,” she flips through a notepad of well-organized notes, “but he was here along?” 

“Yes,” I cry out, “I know I shouldn’t have lied, but I was worried someone would find him, he wasn’t healing but I thought it was under control, I don’t know where he is now, but I need to see him.” 

“What was his injury?” Another officer steps in. 

I reach up with my shackled hands, I can picture him in the tub, and even feel his flesh on the pads of my fingers, “his neck, it was a clean cut, maybe two centimeters or so into the flesh. He was talking to me, he was fine I swear to you.”

“Take him to the station,” she turns her back on me, “I think we’ve heard enough from this freak.” 

I struggle against them, they may be strong, but I’m stronger and faster. I didn’t make it this far in this miserable world to go back to rotting in the cities stinking underground, be it prison or sewer. I’ve been to the prisons enough time to know what they’re like. I break free and run down the alley, gunshots ring out through the air as the pidgins scatter. A bullet ricochets off a brick wall and hits me in the shoulder. It eats through my flesh and muscle and spews out bits on me on its exit out, but I can ignore the pain and continue to run. Another hits my side, ripping through my ribs with ease. Another to my calf, and another to my arm. 

I stumble forwards and trip on what appears to be my own leg beneath me. A mixture of blood, fat, muscle and tendon hangs loosely around my calf bone. It strains when I try to move, bits of it snap further under pressure. I can’t bring myself to a stand, there is no air in my lungs, no blood in my veins to perform any work. Death creeps up behind me like a cool breeze, a single moment of peace sweeps over me. 

I look up, my own blood clouds my vision, the light beyond the deep red lake is blinding. I see him, at least a shadow of him. I scream out his name with everything I have left. I want him to come back, I need him to come back. He comes into focus, but his face remains smooth, no features just skin pulled over a skull. Like a reaper, he stands over me, “I’m sorry,” I cry out. I need to forgive me if I’m ever to die alone like this. He turns away as if disgusted by the sight of me and fades into the darkness as everything around me does too. In the dark silence, the final shot rings out. 

I knew all along that he was dead. But, with every fibre if my person, I didn’t want him to be. I imagined his voice, his smile, the touch of his skin. I realized now that none of that was him, I dressed the corpse, fed it, slept with it, and kissed it goodbye every morning. Everyone could smell him on me, even I could. I wanted it to feel like he was there, I’d die if I was to loose him, but I knew his last breath was under that tree out in the field.

**Author's Note:**

> i was going to upload this for halloween but i forgot about it LOL and pls remember that sleeping with dead people is morally wrong and makes u a bad person. thanks for reading :)


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